Intrepid engine failure

A much older friend of mine, still driving in his nineties (and qualified to do so ) had his Chrysler blow up (caught fire from a problem that had been on a recall except he had purchased it used and the recall notice went to the widow of the previous owner and he didn’t reciece it. So he used the 3000 dollars insurance to buy a 1999 Intrepid with maybe 160,000 kms. Seemed like a very nice car, very clean. A few monthes down the line a knocking noise developed, then it got worse, and then the engine gave out. We looked up a few things on the internet and it seems these cars had a lousy engine, lots of them gave out. The question is: can it be reliably repaired? Is there a newer engine (without the ‘genetic’ defects of this one, that would replace that ruined one?

We’d sure appreciate some help.

Thanks,

Dead Eye

Well the first issue is finding out what the problem was to begin with. That may be a little difficult for one of us users to figure out by just knowing it was making a noise. You’re gonna have to bring it to a mechanic and have him tear apart the engine to find out what it was. Then from there you can decide whether or not it is worth fixing. Most likely it was a major component and is going to be costly to fix, and it may have actually ruined something else depending on if it had something fatal to do with another part.

Lemme guess… It’s a 2.7 liter V-6, right. They have had a VERY POOR reputation for logevity. If he got 160 KMs out of it, he did pretty well. (What’s that in dog years… right at 100,000 miles?)

Try looking at www.car-part.com to see if you can find a low mileage used engine cheap enough to make it worthwile.